


Like A White Stone

by gingertintedglasses



Series: One Shots [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel
Genre: Anastasia AU, Buckynat mini bang, F/M, Russian Bucky Barnes, Russian Revolution, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-06-01 00:42:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6494119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingertintedglasses/pseuds/gingertintedglasses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to “Freedom is Like This” ( http://archiveofourown.org/works/5444345 ) </p><p>Borya (Bucky) and Natalia grow up together in pre-revolution Russia. When a madman known only to them as Johann orchestrates the Revolution they barely escape with their lives, only to be captured by the Red Room.</p><p>Separated, tortured and molded into two of the deadliest assassins in the 20th century, they don’t see one another again until HYDRA sends the Winter Soldier to shape the world one last time.</p><p>With the collapse of HYDRA, Natalia and Borya re-discover more than who they used to be.  Johann is still very much alive, despite the Russian Revolution, a World War II battle against Captain America that should have frozen him to death, and the passage of time. </p><p>Finding a way to kill a seemingly unkillable man before he re-engages their programming to finish the work HYDRA couldn’t quickly becomes one of their primary objectives.</p><p>The others?  Don’t forget. Don’t get separated.  Don’t. Forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A White Stone

**Author's Note:**

> The Anna Akhmatova poem this fic is titled after can be found here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Modern_Russian_Poetry/%22Like_a_White_Stone%22
> 
> This fic is a follow-up to Freedom Is Like This, which can be found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5444345

In the first months, he retched and shook and screamed. He was never sure what had been real and what hadn’t. He had no scars, so he resigned himself to never knowing for sure.

 

He shared a bed with Natalia like they hadn’t since before the Revolution, when Borya would have been put to death if they had been discovered.

 

She was still all warm, soft skin that smelled clean. And ever so slightly of Krasnaya Moskva, he discovered in the dead of the first night they’d spent together in seventy years, when he had her crushed tight against him, breathing heavy into her hair.

 

“They still sell it?” He knew she was awake and kept his voice a low, rough rumble only for the proximity of her ears.

 

“Mmm. Always was m’favorite.” The words were slurred with sleep, she was quiet long enough he thought she’d drifted off. “Still don’know where you managed to find that first bottle.”

 

He let out an uneven breath against the hair beginning to curl at the nape of her neck. He’d forgotten he was the one to gift her with her with it first, scraping and saving and all for nothing when he decided he wanted to get her a larger bottle, and so slipped it and his savings into his coat pocket.

 

“She was asleep again, the amount of time he spent burrowing into that particular memory lost on him.

 

If the heat of his breath on her nape bothered her, she never made mention. Ultimately, it did not matter. He woke often enough, column of his neck damp with the evidence of her own violent nightmares. She would forgive him the small, damp curls.

 

*****

 

It was a month before he would speak of it to her. She didn’t ask though he knew she wanted to.

 

“I was in the Red Room for only brief periods of time.”

 

Natalia set down her book with a soft thud. “Madame made it sound like you had been there for a while, by the time I was conscious.”

 

“They kept you sedated for weeks before they finally let you wake.”

 

Natalia was, above all else, made of smooth, deliberate movements; she snapped her body around to face him fully, at that.

 

“To make me cooperate.” Borya felt a wry smile tug at his mouth. “I was not in the business of playing by their rules. They refused to wake you –threatened to kill you, finally- unless I …behaved. So. I did. Once they were sure I was acting in earnest, they allowed you to wake.”

 

“How long?”

 

“Two months, give or take.” He motioned towards his left arm. “They’d taken that, by then. The horse had crushed it.”

 

“I looked for you, at first.” The words curled out of her mouth soft and final.

 

He was loathe to speak of it at all, but he relished these moments when they were alone and he could her native inflection wind around consonants and stresses.

 

Something clutched around his throat at the notion that he was the only one to hear her as she really was. She had been in hiding that long, alone. He swallowed the thought down.

 

“I was gone, by the time you were fully awake. He took me.”

 

“How long?”

 

Borya concentrated on easing his jaw open. “That was the agreement, Natalia. He brought us to Department X. In return, he demanded the use of the talents we would develop. Madame drove a hard bargain. He would only received the aid of one of us. I convinced him it should be me. I would not leave you to that jackal.”

 

Since he’d found her again, he had been cataloging the differences between the Natalia before him, and who he remembered Natalia to be in the still-foggy bits of his memories.

 

She was still made of soft, warm skin, but the muscle underneath it was firm and as unyielding as her resolve. Her palms had small callouses and thin, white scars of past sins.

 

He studied a long, white indent, jagged across the palm she held up to him. “Borya, please.”

 

“He would have asked unspeakable things of you. He had always wanted you.”

 

Borya remembered drenching her with water, finding reason after pitiful reason to be tidying up in a room she was in. The lashes and punishment for being where he shouldn’t have been, in the name of refusing to leave her with Johann unsupervised when they were children.

 

“Those things were asked of me anyway.”

 

“He would have made you his.”

 

In his peripherals, he saw her clench her jaw, lips stretching into a thin, silent line.

 

It was a look he had seen before any number of times. When her mother made requests Natalia could not deny, when her father was particularly politically idiotic and clumsy. When the sun crept over the treetops and she was made to slink back to her own rooms before the maids caught her out-of-place.

 

“He could not have.” It was not often that she sounded anything less than sure of herself.

 

“He can do anything. Natalia—“ It was not something he’d ever done. Merely thinking the word, he knew from experiments of his own, caused something to _shift_ inside of him, a white-hot moment of stillness; as though he’d been blindsided by a fist to his temple.

 

Swallowing bile he stood, found a pen and paper and wrote in shaky, messy scratches: _спутник_.

 

Her mouth moved to form the words.

 

“-Don’t.” He tucked the paper into her hands, curling his around hers as he did so. “It is a…reset code. Of sorts.”

 

“I do not need it, then.”

 

“If he were to find us, to try and turn me against you, you will need to know how to stop me.” It wasn’t likely to work, but it was something. Maybe.

 

Natalia had never been in the business of doubting him, and by her stiff nod, she wasn’t about to start. “He—“

 

Borya did not want to hear it spoken aloud. She knew, now. Not just of the missions and the blood and the gunpowder. But also of the brainwashing; the hypnotism and mysticism that Johann used to keep Borya perpetually under his thumb. Escaping both he and the Red Room were the second and third best things he’d ever managed.

 

The best, well. He had her back again.

 

“-Yes. He did.” Borya shrugged, feigned nonchalance and taking it as an opportunity to work out the strain building in his shoulders. “And now you know.”

 

*****

 

It was another month before she spoke to him of what she had endured, though he knew enough to know he wasn’t eager to fill in the gaps in his knowledge.

 

In that time, the nightmares became fewer; the intensity was the same. The closeness between them returned, mostly; there had been enough kindness beaten out of them and enough mistrust beaten in that it was, to understate it, a challenge. It was only by the tells they knew so well, familiar passageways between one to the other that they were able to find their way partway back to how they had been.

 

The sex was better, though lacking the thrill of taboo it held before the Revolution. They had both had learn how to use all of their talents for their missions. Though it was a pleasant change for both of them for an evening in bed to end without bloodshed.

 

It was the thirty-fifth day since he had spoken of his time separated from her that she decided to unclench her jaw and face the ghosts lurking in the corners and shadows of their apartment head-on.

 

“I looked for you, at first.” She didn’t look up from her book as she spoke.

 

Natalia appreciated a comprehensive vantage point, and Stark had apparently been accommodating when constructing her private quarters in his Tower. Borya reached over silently and turned off the lamp, the only light filtering into the room now was from the city still vibrant and buzzing many levels below.

 

He was always aware of her presence and so heard her sigh before rounded, lilting words followed out into the darkness. “I looked for you, at first. Not long. They made me forget who I was looking for.”

 

“How?” Johann had used all manner of manipulation and techniques. Department X had liked syringes and vials. Borya could only guess at what Natalia endured.

 

“Medicine, they called it. Only – I felt stronger and emptier every time. Knew I was missing something, but not what.” The soft thud of her book being set aside filled the brief silence. “It wasn’t until the war that I realized I wasn’t aging. Not like Madame. Not like my targets.”

 

“And so?” Borya would not risk a decibel above a whisper.

 

“I waited. The effects wore off eventually and I would begin to remember. The war meant I was on longer assignments; I pretended I hadn’t remembered anything.” A rustle of fabric, a shrug, perhaps. “A few years of that, and they gave me a mission that kept me in the field long enough and I escaped. I barely made it into Allied territory before my scheduled rendezvous.”

 

“Barely?”

 

“Three hours.”

 

“Surprised they weren’t on your heels.”

 

“I was too reliable.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“I never hesitated. Even in the beginning, when I would get sick afterwards. I would always pull the trigger.”

 

He kept his question locked behind his lips.

 

“You’ve seen the file. So you know.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“It’s the only one that makes my stomach turn, still.”

 

“The others?”

 

“Guilt, on paper.”

 

*****

 

She was reading. She was always reading.

 

"Do you still enjoy it?"

 

She didn't glance up from the page. "It used to be that knowledge was power.  Now it's information." She shrugged. "The data matters more than what it means."

 

"He's hiding in plain sight." He had always appreciated how quickly she could puzzle a thing out.

 

Natalia nodded. "Because no one's looking."

 

"You are."

 

"We will find him."

 

The determined curl to her lip was at once familiar and new.  He had not seen it in nearly a century, but he remembered it well: bearing out in stolen foodstuffs from the kitchen as a late-night snack, stealing into and out of his room each night after the age of ten. Refusing to name an admirer to her mother.

 

_"I did not see it among the other gifts you received, pet.  From whom did it come?"_

_Borya was present only because Natalia and her mother were returning their mares to the stables after an afternoon ride.  It had been a month since Natalia's sixteenth birthday and still her mother pressed._

_Given the glances she shot Borya, her mother suspected it was him.  Her father was, blessedly, far less canny._

_"I did not anticipate you cataloging the gifts I received so carefully.  Or, for that matter, caring."_

_"I do not.  But so fine a thing - it's noticeable.  As should be the man who gifted it to you."_

_Natalia hummed and handed her bridle over to Borya.  "Yes.  I imagine he is."_

_He ducked his head, subservience to hide his smile._

_"Natalia."  Sharp, this time, her mother's tone._

_"Mother."  She had never forgiven her mother for forbidding Natalia’s friendship with Borya and it manifested in the aloof air she had taken around her mother six years before._

_"You will tell me who this suitor is.  I will forbid it, if he shows up asking for your hand without having stepped foot in our home like a gentleman."_

_"Are you not worried I might elope?"_

_Natalia's grace was passed down from her mother, who cut off Natalia's exit from the stables with surprising speed._

_"Name this suitor, lest I think it the stable boy and have him punished for it."_

_Borya could have laughed, for the utter sincerity and derision in her mother's tone._

_Natalia merely sniffed.  "You were bemoaning my expensive taste just this morning.  What makes you think I would want anything from a pauper? You know better than anyone the men I've turned away.  A rogue is hardly my type."_

_Borda_ did _find himself something better to do, then, or he would have laughed.  A rogue was_ exactly _her type_.

 

"No."  

 

He had been remembering for too long, and he startled her out of her thoughts when he spoke.

 

"No?"

 

"He will be found when he wants to be and it will be a trap.  You know that as well as I do.  Don't be foolish, Natalia."

 

"There’s a line between foolish and rash.  I'm allowed to toe it.  I haven't spent my life as someone else weapon only to do what I do poorly."

 

“You remember the man I warned you about, when we were children? That man is nothing to fear compared to the one I know he is now.”

 

The determination in her grin waned, becoming something quieter, and firmer. She said nothing, and he felt something settle in his stomach similar to the lodestone of dread that came to rest inside him in 1917.

*****

 

Steve, Borya understood, was a man from a time just after their own, who tried desperately to believe the killing he did was righteous because the people he was pulling the trigger for were the right people.

 

Natalia too worked for them, for S.H.I.E.L.D. Unlike Steve, she knew that no matter who she pulled the trigger for, death had been her lot in life since 1917.

 

There was no medicine with S.H.I.E.L.D., at least, she had said.

 

Steve, Borya understood, was graceful only with his shield in his hands. Steve, Borya understood, would rather be right than alive.

 

He could appreciate that; there had been few men Borya had encountered in his too-long life that were of such strong convictions. He did not think it was particularly intelligent.

 

What Borya wanted to do was wrap his metal hand around Steve’s throat and squeeze, undeserving of the air he breathed so freely. What he did was sharpen his favorite knife and glare until he knew the words would come out even and low.

 

“You’re trying really hard to put her on the receiving end of your ignorance, for someone who calls her a friend.”

 

“I’m just trying to help.”

 

“You’re going to help him find her and put her in a grave. Both of us in a grave.”

 

Natalia chose that moment to step into their quarters, sparing them only a lifted eyebrow as she made her way to the fridge.

 

“What good is waiting if you know he’s coming? How do you even _know_ he’s coming? I _saw_ him – he disappeared into a…portal. The stars. I’d never seen anything like it until New York and the Chitauri.”

 

Steve was proud of his new countertops. Borya moved the fruit bowl to the left one foot and jammed his knife point-first into the middle of a tile. He ignored Steve’s aborted grunt and disapproving glare.

 

“He was considered a mystic before the February Revolution. Whatever happened to him during war, he came back different.”

 

“How can you be so sure he came back? I saw him get zapped to another…universe.”

 

“Steve.” Natalia had always been formidable, even before the Red Room, and she poured every inch of it into her voice. It was not a tone he had heard since they were both young.

 

It was not a tone Steve had ever heard, apparently, and he clenched his jaw.

 

“Whatever happened to him during the war, he came back different.”

 

“You saying there’s something _worse_ than the weapons he made with the Cube?”

 

“I’m saying the Cube is the key to his …bargain.” The tile had cracked in four places around his knifepoint.

 

Steve’s face shifted, closed and dark. “What bargain?”

 

“Я знаю, что вы доверяете ему, Наталью, но я этого не делают. Он не может знать больше.”

 

Natalia merely nodded, flicking her eyes to Steve. “Fury wants you for a debrief.”

 

“I thought he wasn’t Director anymore.”

 

She shrugged. “Still wants you for debrief.”

 

Steve clenched his jaw tighter, and went.

 

“He carries it with him everywhere.” Borya studied the edge of his knife. It would need to be sharpened again in two days.

 

“It took him ages to refinish that countertop between missions.”

 

“Then it’s a good thing I only ruined one tile. I’ll have to get close enough to take it.”

 

“Do you even know what you’re looking for?”

 

He lifted a shoulder, finally deciding upon a pear and jerking the knife from the counter, flicking away bits of ceramic dust.

 

“I’ve seen it once, I think. “

 

“And after you take it?”

 

“Destroy it.”

 

“He’s been alive a lot longer than he seems.”

 

“He didn’t possess it until he returned from whatever world he found himself in. Before that, it might just have been witchcraft. This, he sold his soul for.”

 

“He still had one?”

 

Borya smirked. “Twisted and blackened though it was.”

 

“You’re sure?”

 

“You’ve kept things from me, about the Red Room. There are things you’ll never know, either. I’m sure.”

 

Her fingers brushed his nape, and she was gone.

 

*****

 

He did not try to fall back to sleep after his nightmare that evening; the pit in his stomach heavy, chilling his blood, dragging him down below depths to drown when he tried to close his eyes again.

 

_“Your assignment with the Department has ended. I have a new task for you.”_

_It was a voice he had not heard in eighteen years and five months. He had been sweating in his tactical gear, high up on a roof in the middle of summer in Cuba. The sound of that voice was enough to make him shiver and Castro wavered in his sights._

_  
The voice of Johann nearly cost the Americans their lives._

_“The mission is not complete.”_

_Johann had been gone nearly twenty years. His former handler may have given him orders at one time, but it had been too long and he belonged to another entity now._

_“The mission is_ over _.”_

_The weapon moved of it’s own volition, from his hands and into Johann’s. Before he could reach for another gun, a knife,_ anything _, he was disarmed, the knife he always stored in his boot as a last-ditch effort he never needed dropping onto the pile at Johann’s feet._

_“You understand now, yes?” The last wisps of blue smoke curled away from his weapons and drifted back into Johann’s coat._

_He nodded._

_It was as though the Cube had a mind of it’s own. He wondered, briefly, what that would be like, before the gears of his mind ground to a halt at Johann’s next words._

_“спутник_. _Then we leave now. We have much work to do.”_

_Yes. Yes there was much to do. Much time to make up for. Weapons strapped to his tactical gear and slipped into pockets. No time to waste. A plague of metal and flesh was coming._

 

*****

 

“Borya.”

 

It was dark outside, and Natalia stood in the archway between the kitchen and the living space, hair damp and white t-shirt riding up over one hip.

 

He had lost time again. How much, he wasn’t sure, but at least an hour, maybe two. There was no pattern to what he remembered, when he remembered, what _made_ him remember. But his memories of the past seventy years were slowly coming back and he wished they weren’t.

 

“Destroying it is the only way.”

 

“You’re sure?”

 

“Nothing else has stopped him. It’s our only option.”

 

She nodded. She watched him silently for so long he felt and buried the itch to shift his feet.

 

“How often?”

 

“It depends.”

 

At some point during his nightmare, his memory, he had left their bed and sat himself in the living room. At some point, she had terrified herself awake and showered to wash the sweat and panic from her skin.

 

“What are you missing?”

 

Borya felt a rueful smile turn ugly on his lips. “I don’t know. How could I?”

 

“I’m –I.” To see Natalia flustered was a rare thing.

 

He crossed the room to shift damp strands from her face. “I don’t remember everything yet. But it’s there. Ты в моих костях, Наталья.”

 

She stared, and Borya had the impression that she shook inside, though she was standing stock-still. It was rare, that they expressed any affection outside of their bedroom, having spent too long hiding it. But she surged forward and up onto her toes, breathing against his mouth: “Come to bed.”

 

He went.

 

*****

 

It was another two months before Borya discovered Johann’s location. Remote, Russian, the perfect place to take back what Johann deemed his, and to gain what he’d wanted for the past century.

 

They had already discussed the logistics: they would go alone. If they were compromised, they would be destroyed. Hill had promised.

 

Of all Natalia’s contacts from S.H.I.E.L.D., she was the only one Borya liked.

 

_They laid out their plan and their pasts in far greater detail than either had before, to an outsider. Maria Hill sat in silence, observing them both; processing the information she’d been handed._

_“It’s just as likely that he’ll stop you as it is that you’ll kill him. You need a team.”_

_“If he activates my programming, they’d all be in danger. If they activate his—“_

_“—They’d all be killed.” Borya cut in. Natalia made a face. It wasn’t what she was going to say, but it was the truth._

_Hill sighed. “You want a jet and you want…what, then, if not back-up?”_

_“Assurance. That if we’re compromised, you’ll destroy the jet. With us in it.”_

_“Cap would hate this plan, if he knew.”_

_Natalia gave a wry smile. “That’s why you’re the only one that knows. So?”_

_A slow smile crept across Natalia’s lips as she watched and waited. The trust they had placed in Hill would not be unfounded._ She gave the order to fire when Steve was still on the hellicarriers. _Natalia had said_. We can trust her to do what is required of the mission _. Natalia had been right._

_Hill nodded once. “Yes.”_

_Borya felt the plates in his arm shift and hiss, his human shoulder slump a fraction. It was a comfort, to have an ally who could follow a mission instead of her heart._

 

Enough of his memories had returned that he was confident – _confident enough_ – he could kill Johann. And if not, he slept easier knowing Hill would kill them if they failed.

 

Natalia waited until after Hill departed to shift her focus. For all that they had laid their plans, Borya still had not told her everything, and so she pressed. “How do we kill him?”

 

They had only ever had the other, since they were small; too much underfoot for elders to bother with them, his or hers. They had always protected one another; from the time her mother demanded they part ways.

 

She would not like his solution. It was their only option nonetheless.

 

“I know how. I will do it.”

 

“Tell me.”

 

He set his features in stone and shook his head once.

 

“Borya.”

 

He had kept Johann from her this far, he would not let that change now. “We leave tomorrow. 0300.”

 

“ _Borya_.”

 

“Once we live through tomorrow night, we go anywhere we want.”

 

He took his leave of her then, escaping the Tower and disappeared into the crowded streets; hood up, pacing himself for a jog of several dozen miles. She could find him, if she wanted to. He knew she wouldn’t.

 

_He carried it on his person, Borya knew that much. Where exactly, he didn’t know, but he had seen enough talismans in Johann’s possession to think the man would not carry such vulnerability around in any other way, foolish though it was. He’d been untouchable for so long, he wouldn’t imagine that he’d ever be burgled._

_Borya would have to get close enough to steal it, without Johann noticing._

_The noticing would not be a problem. Department X operatives were ghosts. He, as Johann’s, had never existed._

_The proximity would be a problem. As soon as he got close enough, earshot perhaps, Johann would speak The Word and Borya would be his again._

_Natalia would have to kill him, to save herself and stop Johann._

_She would not like the plan. She would not know about it until she was faced with saving his life, or innumerable others._

_She could spend the rest of her long life after that bitter at him for making her put a bullet in his brain._

 

His mind made up, he gave his attention over to the time – well past sunset and people beginning to duck into bars in droves – and turned back towards the Tower.

 

*****

 

He didn’t see her again until 0255 the next morning, sauntering toward the carrier dock, stealth suited, grim-faced, checking the charges on her Widow’s Bite.

 

From the moment-too-long look she threw him, he knew she hadn’t ever seen him look so fearsome: only his eyes were visible and he had more weapons strapped to his tactical gear than even he had thought possible. There was small comfort, in the weight of it.

 

She settled into the seat to his right, utterly silent as he checked and re-checked and finally took off, the Tower and then New York becoming distant specks.

Natalia waited until there nothing but the deep, green-blue water of the Atlantic on all sides to speak, switching off the comms before she did. Hill was the only one listening, and even that was too much.

 

“You’re not dressed for a mission.”

 

He glanced to his controls. “You’ve always trusted me. Don’t ask.”

 

“You’re dressed for death. I wasn’t asking.”

 

Borya flicked the autopilot on, a frustrated afterthought.

 

“Do you remember the first lesson you taught me?”

 

“Do you?”

 

“Natalia.”

 

“Akhmatova.”

 

Borya nodded. “Then you understand.”

 

She nodded, lips a thin, firm line, and turned the comms back on.

 

There was time enough left that by the time they passed over land again, he had remembered most of the words, if not their exact order. _The ancient gods changed men into things, but left/A consciousness that smoldered endlessly,/That splendid sorrows might endure forever./And you are changed into a memory_.

 

Heavy and sure and comforting they sat in his chest, echoing in Natalia’s voice, a century younger, in his mind.

 

*****

 

At 0457, Borya set the jet down in a forest half an hour outside of Vorontsovo.   The walk would take more time than usual, given the knee-deep snow.

 

Aside from the dull, quiet crunch of snow under boot and the crisp snap of branches under the weight of the powder, the walk was silent.

 

 _And you are changed into a memory_.

 

It was the only way. She would be angry, but she would understand. She always had. It would take time, but she would understand, eventually. He itched to finger the edge of a knife, the trigger of a gun, anything to bolster the surety he felt wavering for the first time since being taken by Department X.

 

At 0604, the tree line thinned and a small cabin came into view approximately one hundred meters away, backed up against a rock formation. In his peripherals, Borya watched Natalia slide her fingers over her weapons, mentally calibrating and recalibrating.

 

He only had to raise his arm partway to halt her.

 

“There’s no surprising him. Even if we were silent, he’d know.”

 

The white puff of her exhalation said more than the words she kept behind the frown Steve Rogers had taught her.

 

They crept forward silently nonetheless. Points of egress were few and reinforced. He slipped thick plugs of wax into his ears; Johann would use him against Natalia if he were able. His only option was to deafen himself as much as he could.

 

At 0615, they infiltrated the cabin. The door was little match for the mini-charge Natalia placed over the heavy lock-and-bolt. He took point, kicking through the door and charging in, Natalia at his back to cover him.

 

Johann was ready for their arrival and Borya tucked and rolled out of the line of fire, raising his gun and retaliating to provide Natalia with enough cover to get inside. Quick and cat-like she followed, ducking inside and taking cover where she could.

 

The cabin was sparsely decorated; a deep, comfortable chair and a small couch, bookcases filled with books lining two walls. A table covered in books and papers stood in one corner. The kitchen had only a small stove and a basin for dishes, two shelves stocked with provisions. There was a loft that overhung half of the space, presumably for bedding and what looked like the smallest version of a lab Johann could manage.

 

Borya had taken refuge behind the chair, Natalia the couch, weapons trained on Johann.

 

A cruel, calm smile was all Johann gave them before the furniture was yanked aside, blue tendrils curling around it. Natalia vaulted past the tail-end of the couch as it skidded past her, launching straight towards Johann. Three shots that should have found their mark in Johann’s head were stopped, encased in blue, smoky wisps.

 

Natalia side-stepped crashing straight into Johann, instead trying to wrap her garrote around his throat. She was graceful and quick and Johann struggled to free himself.

 

As Borya reached them to lend a crushing, metal grip to Natalia’s garrote, Johann tossed her. She hit the opposite wall, crashing hard onto Johann’s flimsy excuse for a table, and splintered it.

 

Borya was fast, but not fast enough, and it was far less a pick-pocketing and more a grapple as Johann turned on him. String and leather and bits of bone and fuzz in his pockets.

 

And something far colder and somehow _alive_. Wrenching Johann’s head back –far, far enough to snap it but somehow not snapping it despite his effort- Borya pulled and wrestled out of Johann’s grip.

 

He rolled away, kicking the bottom of a bookcase to topple it and provide him some cover, fist clenched around a talisman, chilly and somehow thrumming, shoving it into a pocket before Johann could see it was missing.

 

Johann’s rush towards Borya was halted by Natalia. Again she latched onto him, this time with her legs and flipping him, his head cracking audibly against the floor. He barely hesitated and while she moved to put her gun to Johann’s head, Johann threw her again, as effortlessly as he had the first time. This time, he sent her up, crashing back-first against the rafters, before falling down onto the remains of the table, rag-doll limp.

 

Natalia’s grunt was as frustrated as it was pained. And unexpected.

 

Johann had gotten the earplugs from Borya. And managed to wrap one thin, strong, blue tendril around Natalia’s ankle and _pull_. She was seated against Johann’s knees, staring up at Borya with wide eyes as she scrambled to get her breath back from her fall.

 

“неповиновение требует повторной калибровки.” Johann nearly whispered, but it was enough.

 

The woman –the woman –Natalia shook her head, blinked hard. Stared at him. Him. Borya. Her pupils dilated and contracted; confusion marring her face one moment, and perfectly clarity washing her expression clean the next.

 

They were here. Here. –Russia. Russia. For Johann. No. Not right. Not quite.

 

To kill Johann.

 

They were in Russian to kill Johann.

 

Natalia had gathered herself enough, and elbowed Johann in the ribs, hard, sending a rush of air from his lungs and she slid out of his grasp.

 

Borya reached for her as she extended her arm, intending to pull her up and away and behind him. Yes. He had always kept her safe from Johann, whether she needed his protection or not.

 

A slow, cruel smile found its place in Johann’s mouth. “ _спутник_.”

 

Yes. Yes, of course. Johann hadn’t been sure of where the last of the Department X rats were hiding. He’d infiltrated, and led their top operative here, for extermination.

 

She was fast, he would give her that; dodging and weaving, tucking and rolling. But he had managed to grab onto her and he tightened his grip on her wrist.

 

She was on his shoulders before he realized it, wrestling for his weapon, one arm still locked in his metal grasp. He could feel her bones grinding together and he squeezed harder, feeling something give way.

 

He would break the rest of her bones one by one, if that’s what it took. It would be satisfying, at least.

 

Her voice was reedy, rife with pain. “Once we live through –“

 

He slammed backwards into the bookcase that was still standing, smiling at the groan and loosened grasp it elicited. He felt another snap and a sharp intake of breath in his ear as he pressed hard backward, driving her back into the shelving.

 

Yes. Yes, living through this. She would.

 

No.

 

That was wrong. Wasn’t it? He had just felt at least one of her ribs give way. She would not live through this.

 

No. He was right the first time. He knew it, somehow. She would live through this.

 

 _Once we live through_ —what? She would live, he would not. He knew it. He didn’t know how he knew it.   He had far more weapons, was stronger, and faster, and _better_ than she was. There was no doubt that he would live.

 

So why did he doubt it?

 

He reached for her again and she ducked, managing to wriggle out from behind him and roll away from him. “We go anywhere we want.” She struggled to her feet, back to the opposite wall, eyes wide and darting between he and Johann.

 

She was right. They could blend in anywhere. They were the best. She was right.

 

She was.

 

She.

 

Natalia?

 

Yes. Yes, she had her face. It was –but how? He was –he –Borya. He was Borya.

 

Wasn’t he?

 

 _Johann_. Johann with his sickly smile and easy stance, separate from their fight. Watching them destroy one another. Watching Borya destroy _her_.

 

His eyes focused, and stalked toward Natalia. They had spent years communicating with looks and miniscule gestures before the Revolution and the barest flick of his fingers alerted her to his intention, his command over his own mind. She pressed back further against the wall, feigning terror, capture.

 

Borya reached past Natalia for a book, flipping it end over end so fast Johann didn’t have time to move, and before Johann could recover from the edge of the book colliding with his forehead, Natalia was on him.

 

Johann was barely struggling. Instead, he was whispering. Natalia’s grasp clenched and loosened. Eyes focused and unfocused. She was bleeding and broken and bruised. And fighting hard for her memories.

 

And losing.

 

At 0638, she dropped her weapon into Johann’s hand.

 

Borya felt as though he were frozen in place, watching as Johann nestled the gun behind her ear. He couldn’t be sure, but he would be surprised if Natalia had ever had her weapon wrestled from her since she completed her Red Room training.

 

She was fighting for her memories even still, shaking and struggling against the thin, cold, vice grip of Johann’s hand wrapped around her throat.

 

“Pay attention. спутник.”

 

Yes. Of course. He had delivered the Department X scum to Johann, as ordered. This would be the beginning of the slaughter. None were safe from them.

 

“The honor is yours.” Johann indicated to the woman without loosening his grip. He never missed, so Johann would not need to move from where he’d pinned her. “Do you think, little паук, that he will hesitate when I give the order?”

 

She shook her head hard, several times. “Anywhere. –Anywhere we want.”

 

That made no sense. What was she –no. It did. It made sense. He pointed the muzzle of his gun away by a single degree while he tried to think.

 

It was frustrating that he did not know _why_ it made sense.

 

No. She was wrong. He readjusted his aim.

 

“Borya. Please.”

 

 _Borya. Please._ What was –Oh.

 

Oh.

 

He focused his aim at Johann’s head.

 

No. That wasn’t right.

 

Her head. Eyes wide.

 

No. That wasn’t right.

 

None of it made sense. He was there to kill one of them.

 

But which? He readjusted, again and again, feeling the furrow in his brow deepen.

 

“I am waiting, собака. Disobedience requires recalibration.”

 

Yes. Yes of course. How could he have mistaken? She would die.

 

“ _Borya_.” Panic and desperation and –heartbreak? That could not be right.

 

But it was, plain on her face and –she. She.

 

 _She_.

 

 _Natalia_.

 

Natalia. Johann. The talisman. Yes. He remembered, now.

 

It was 0643.23 when Borya slid the talisman from a pocket on his gear.

 

At 0643.29, Johann recoiled. Panicked. Started to say: “Where did yo—“

 

At 0643.30, Natalia ducked, and Borya crushed the talisman in his left hand.

 

At 0643.31, blue tendrils weaved from between his fingers toward Johann.

 

At 0643.32, Johann’s skin began to wither and crumple from his body, his head.

 

At 0643.33, Borya took aim and split Johann’s red, red skull.

 

 

 

 


End file.
